actresses, highly distinguished for their general powers, and partially successful even in tragedy; such as Mrs. Woffington, Anne Bellamy, and others. But as my object, in this digression, was only to advert to names of the first-rate tragic grade, I fear the reader may tax me with a fault the opposite of omission, namely, my having mentioned one or two actresses who were more famous on the comic than the graver stage-I allude to Bracegirdle and Oldfield. Still, however, let me state, in apology, that general tradition represents the former as a beautiful tragic performer, and that the Oldfield could have been no second-rate who could throw enchantment around Thomson's dramatic poetry.

CHAPTER IV.

CONTENTS.

Mrs. Siddons plays Isabella, in the "Fatal Marriage,

at Drury Lane-Suitableness of the Part for her first

new Trial-Remarks on the Tragedy-Resumption of

her Memoranda-She appears as Euphrasia, in the

"Grecian Daughter"-as Jane Shore-in Calista-as

Belvidera-and as Zara, in the "Mourning Bride”—

Her first Season.

CHAPTER IV.

1782.

"I was truly grieved," says Mrs. Siddons, in her Memoranda, "to leave my kind friends at Bath, and was also fearful that the power of my voice was not equal to filling a London theatre. My friends, too, were also doubtful; but I soon had reason to think that the bad construction of the Bath theatre, and not the weakness of my voice, was the cause of our mutual fears. On the 10th of October, 1782, I made my first new appearance at Drury Lane, with my own dear beautiful boy, then but eight years old, in Southerne's tragedy of Isabella.' This character was judiciously recommended to me by my kind friend, Mr. Sheridan, the father of Richard Brinsley Sheridan, who had seen me in that play at Bath. The

interest he took in my success was like that of a father."

It was a judicious choice undoubtedly. The part of Isabella had pathos enough to develop her genius, without complexity to make it an extreme ordeal for her powers on their new great trial; and, with her beautiful little son, Henry, in her hand, she looked the very personage.

Southerne, the author of this play, deserves our gratitude, in common with Otway and

* The Morning Post for October 10, 1782, gives the following anecdote about young Henry Siddons."Mrs. Siddons, of Drury Lane theatre, has a lovely little boy, about eight years old. Yesterday, in the rehearsal of the "Fatal Marriage," the boy, observing his mother in the agonies of the dying scene, took the fiction for reality, and burst into a flood of tears, a circumstance which struck the feelings of the company in a singular manner."